Negation
by shellcottages
Summary: Denial is a two-way street. Oneshot.


_**A/N: **__Thank you for reading!_

* * *

He immediately discovered that death was actually pretty easy.

And life was not.

He knew it was going to make a scene, what he did. He would've cared when he was alive, but he didn't now. He wasn't enough of an asshole to just leave them be, and forget about them like they would eventually forget about them. He needed to watch people who handled life the easiest to make sure they weren't going to crumble like he did.

There was one girl he knew to be the strongest of them all, and she was going to get his special attention.

* * *

_"I called him like thirty times, and he never answered."_

He didn't answer any of them. He didn't know which ones he was alive to ignore and which ones he couldn't answer even if he wanted to. What would he say?

Hi Maya, I'm sorry I keep fucking up your life because I'm a fucking terrible person?

Exactly.

Maybe not that. He probably wouldn't have been able to say a word.

But if he did say something along those lines, he didn't know how she would've responded, and he felt that he must've never really known her at all. He never really saw her sad. Not really. Not the type of sad he felt. He had no idea how she would've handled it, and he wouldn't be able to do what he needed to do when he found out.

Just wait until she found out he was dead.

* * *

_"I just saw him the other day. Cam is obviously fine."_

But she was wrong.

He wasn't fine the other day. When he was with her, he was better than fine. He was on top of the world, he wasn't even real. He floated through life, like an oil slick in the ocean; he wouldn't sink.

And ten minutes later he would be wanting to bleed to death on the fucking floor.

Whatever he was, he definitely was never fine; he was fucked up.

And she'd know that soon enough.

* * *

_"He should've fought harder."_

One of the upsides of ending your own life was being able to watch everything with no guilt about the physical event of what you had done. He shouldn't have done anything better. He was dead.

He realized that he wasn't angry he was dead, but angry that he had kicked the fucking bucket on his own, and nothing more than the feelings reeling from the stigma of suicide. She didn't miss him. She wasn't mad at him but she was mad at the suicide.

_"Or found someone to help. I would've helped him, but he never gave me the chance!"_

He was beyond help. He thought that point was made obvious by now.

_"Cam had so many reasons to stay-"_

Hockey? Made his life hell. Family? Fucking shipped him off to hell. Friends? Name one who didn't fuck things up. Girlfriend?

_"-but instead he just checked out. Well, fine. But I'm not lighting any candles. And I won't cry."_

Well, clearly, she didn't give a fuck. And that hurt so fucking bad.

* * *

_"I really need my best friend right now."_

At least she had Tori bring things back to normal.

He knew that Maya was fine with everything, but he knew she would be more fine if something filled the gap. He was a breathing person at one point, and whether they had wanted him to have existed or not, he still did. There was empty space, and Tori would help take the emptiness away and move forward.

On the surface, he didn't care what Maya thought, just as long as she was still on the earth breathing. Deep down, he wanted her to feel a little upset about his decision, and even deeper down, he wanted her to pretend he never existed, which is the what everyone else believed when he lived, and what made him do it in the first place.

She had Hoot to protect her. When he was alive, all he wanted was to be the one to do that, but since he realised he could do fuck all about it, he was glad she found something to do it for him.

* * *

_"If this is about Cam and my well-being, my being is well, see?"_

That was the first time she said his name aloud since the vigil.

You can't read minds if you're dead. He used to imagine he could see past the initial tears of oh-my-god's and why-did-he-do-it's and hear that they all thought he was an asshole who was so fucked in the head to do that. Nobody ever showed that side out in the open, but as he knew all too well, there were many dark secrets stuck in people's own minds.

His imagination could only run so wild, though. Just like on earth, you only know what people tell you.

And she had just said she was fine.

Finally, over a week later, she says how she feels.

And as much as it hurt, he knew where to go from there.

* * *

_"You're right. I mean, we should probably make sure it's okay with him, too. Oh. Wait."_

He couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not, so he tried to find a way to tell her it was okay. Was that was the whole purpose of him doing it? So she could find someone who could treat her better?

It was a lost cause to try telling then to do what they have to do. Luckily, she'd already moved on to someone who wouldn't ask about her dead boyfriend, and he liked it that way.

But he couldn't help but notice that if Zig had used the "What about Cam" strategy before, the ending would have been so much different. Maybe he still could've loved her right by her side.

* * *

_"Everyone seems to think that my way is wrong because I'm not sitting in a corner, crying every day, wearing a black veil or whatever."_

No, it wasn't wrong at all. It was the right way.

He fucked things up for everyone, and the last fuck-up he ever did was make so many people start over. She just happened to not be affected the way everyone else did, and it made him happy.

She dressed a little differently, wore some new clothes that he didn't really like, but he knew some of the other guys from the school would. She also seemed to feel better in them, which surprised him, but maybe he didn't know her as well as he thought he did. She certainly didn't know him, after all.

* * *

_"Look, I'm sorry I'm not crying all the time, but I never asked to be the girlfriend of the dead guy."_

She was drunk, but he knew that alcohol was basically truth serum.

_"I would never ask that. Never."_

He was mad at himself. He knew when he started dating her that he was fucked in the head and he still let her love him anyway. He was a selfish bastard and he knew he made the right decision. He died because he loved her, and part of him wished that he had done it sooner so she didn't have people talk shit about her.

_"So could we all just get over it?"_

One person did, and it was enough.

* * *

_"People have been talking about me for weeks. At least now it's for something I did."_

He didn't like it.

He didn't like how little she knew about this new guy's reputation.

He didn't like the number of strangers who only knew about her drunk side from a party

He didn't like her feeling that this was the only way for her to stand out in the crowd.

He didn't like not being able to protect her.

He didn't like leaving her when he loved her.

He didn't like leading her on in his journey through hell.

* * *

_"Okeydokey."_

He watched her take his stance as she prepared herself for playing. There were many things about the cello that he would never understand, just as there were many things about hockey that she would never understand, but he had become familiar with as much as possible now that she could watch her every practice. The stick-thing, whatever it was called, that was in one hand, and the stringy-part of the cello was in her other. She her hands, ready to begin and-

She froze.

Her head was down and her eyes we closed. She wasn't playing.

Come on, Maya.

She looked up.

Eye contact.

She found him, somehow. He was looking directly in the eyes of Maya Matlin, the only girl he ever loved, and the only person who was unaffected by what he did.

He couldn't look at her. She was the one reason he could've put up with the shit for another ten seconds and he didn't. She wasn't affected like everyone else. She didn't want him back. He broke the eye contact and focused on the window just off to the side of the stage. He couldn't risk wanting to go back, because he knew he couldn't, and shouldn't anyway.

After a while, she looked away, and he felt safe knowing she didn't know how much he missed her, because she deserved more than to have to deal with him even after he was dead.

She played the piece he had heard a hundred times, and she played it beautifully.

* * *

_"Let them flip! I don't care! I'm quitting and I'm done."_

Now, he was worried.

Zig had one thing right, her parents were going to be so upset that she threw it away, and even though he went and pulled it out, there were definitely some damages. He was worried for what they would feel. He was also worried about her friends feeling betrayed, like they lost who they once knew. He was worried that NYMO would miss out on one of the most talented musicians out there because of one video.

But he wasn't worried about her. He didn't want her to change like this, but he wasn't going to blame her or even be concerned. Like she said, she didn't like it when people got mad at her for being who she is. He had hated it too. And if she didn't want to play cello anymore, then she shouldn't have to. He wished she still wanted to play, but more importantly, he didn't want her to be forced into a life she didn't want to live.

* * *

_"I've never done that before."_

He had given them the decency of a little privacy, but he zoned in at the worst or best time, depending on how you look at it.

Jealous? Maybe. They dated for, what, three months, and it never got to this point. Sure, if it had been discussed, he knew his disease would've made him not want to do it, but if she had _asked_ … and she had literally met him on set for the short film last week. Surely that's a bit faster than what happened before.

And then he felt terrible that he had been holding her back all this time.

Well, congrats, Maya, there you go. I'm dead and you can have all you want.

* * *

_"Why not? He broke up with me by killing himself!"_

There wasn't any other option.

_"I hate him."_

She should.

_"I hate him!"_

It was about time she finally admitted that he was as worthless as everyone else knew him to be; the suicide dude, and nothing more.

_"I feel like I'm never going to be happy again-"_

Wait, what?

_"-and every day, it just keeps getting worse-"_

No.

_"-and worse."_

This isn't happening.

_"I can't miss him anymore. I can't."_

Then don't.

_"I don't want to."_

Then Maya, don't.

_"He never even said goodbye."_

All she wanted was a goodbye. He could've laughed. Maybe out of nervousness, but maybe because the idea seemed so stupid. She wouldn't have let him go if he had said it was the end. She would've fought so he would've gotten better and they would've moved on from everything.

Oh, fuck.

Maybe she truly wouldn't have wanted him to-

He had fucked up so fucking bad.

Fuck.

She was screaming in the middle of the fucking floor because she wasn't fine with any of it after all. He was so fucked up when he was alive and fucking killing himself did nothing to change that. He was so stuck in his own fucking head that he couldn't see that she was suffering all along. How was he so blind? He couldn't do fucking anything right.

Why the fuck couldn't she move on from that? All he ever did was hurt her and she was still fucking letting him do it after he went and slashed himself to death. He lied about who she was because she couldn't handle what be did. _Why the fuck didn't he notice? Why didn't she see that she deserved so much fucking better? Why was she still letting herself suffer when this was supposed to make everything okay? He had fucked up_ _so bad and now there was-_

_no-_

_turning-_

_back._

Another one of the perks of being dead is no real pain. You can feel sadness without suffering. And he knew this wasn't suffering, but it was pretty fucking close.

He wanted to hold her as tight as he possibly could and then even tighter, and never let her go until after she knew he had never wanted to hurt her. And they would cry until crying gave them all the answers to questions they never knew they needed to ask. And he would make sure she found someone who would keep her safe from every cruelty the world had to offer because he knew he never could. And he would go up and know he did one thing right and that would be enough. That would finally be enough.

He kept telling himself that he couldn't do all that because Katie got to her first. He didn't have the heart to tell himself that he couldn't do all that because he was purposely dead.

* * *

His purpose in life or death was to watch over her; make sure she was happy. He had no proof of that, but it's something he believed more than anything and gave him any sort of confidence or reason or whatever you wanted to call it. Sometimes he wished he could've done that alive, as her boyfriend, or a friend first, but …

It took Maya Matlin four months to be ready for Zig Novak. Campbell Saunders missed her more than anything. He died to make everyone happier, and he started to be happier when she started to be happy too. He would do so much to have been just as happy on earth with her. He connected her with happiness, but his own suffering had gone in the way.

Denial is a two-way street. He had no clue he was hurting her, and she had no clue she was hurting herself. They had jumped over the hurdle and moved forward but not away. In time, they would be together again, but in the meantime, he would make sure that heaven would wait for her.


End file.
